Brihuega

The first surprise is the smell. Ninety minutes after leaving Madrid's concrete anonymity, the A-2 motorway climbs to 894 metres and the car fills with perfume. Not diesel, not hot tarmac, but proper lavender—clean, herbal, faintly medicinal. Brihuega appears on the ridge ahead, stone walls the colour of burnt cream, and beyond it stripes of purple that look almost nautical until you remember the nearest beach is three hours away.

This is Spain's inland answer to Provence, minus the yachties and the prices. For eleven months of the year the town bumbles along as a market centre for 2,500 souls: old men domino-ing under the arcades of Plaza del Coso, women in housecoats watering geraniums, the occasional Madrid weekender poking around the Arab caves. Then, for six frantic weeks between mid-June and late July, the population quadruples. Coaches disgorge Instagrammers in white linen (the unofficial uniform), honey-lavender ice-cream flows like pink gin at a Henley regatta, and farmers who spend the rest of the year worrying about rainfall suddenly become traffic marshals.

The lavender itself is planted on the plateau south-west of town. Walk the free 1-hour shuttle route—an old school bus with the windows down—or simply follow the dirt track signed “Ruta de la Lavanda”. The fields are privately owned but owners tolerate polite trespass as long as you stick to the tramlines and resist the urge to fill a rucksack. Early morning is best: dew sharpens the colour, bees are still half-asleep, and by eleven the sun is hot enough to make you sympathise with the shepherds who once grazed sheep here before anyone thought of tourism.

Come August the flowers are gone, the plants trimmed into green pom-poms, and Brihuega reverts to type. That is the moment to see the walls properly. They are not the postcard-perfect confection of Ávila or Rhodes—some stretches are rebuilt in rude concrete—but enough medieval masonry survives to explain why archbishops of Toledo squabbled over this ridge. Enter through Puerta de la Cadena, where the road kinks to accommodate a 13th-century tower, and you are immediately inside the old quarter. Streets are barely two Smart cars wide; stone houses wear wooden balconies like afterthoughts. The effect is less museum, more working farmhouse that happens to have Romanesque doors.

San Felipe church dominates the skyline, its clock tower doubling as the town's answer to Big Ben. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and old timber. Look up: the 15th-century artesonado ceiling is a geometric puzzle of interlaced beams, the original carpenters' marks still visible like marginalia. Across the plaza Santa María de la Peña is gloomier, thicker-walled, the sort of fortress-church that reminded villagers salvation and defence came in the same package. Both are usually open; if not, the woman who sells gordal olives in the shop opposite keeps the keys and will let you in for a euro donation she pockets with refreshing honesty.

Underneath everything runs a parallel town. The Arab tunnels—700 metres of them, lit like a 1970s disco—start beneath the ruined Castillo de Peña Bermeja and burrow towards the river. Guides tell stories of grain stores, escape routes and a Moorish princess, but the real pleasure is the temperature: a constant 16 °C that feels like walking into a wine cellar. Tickets are €2 from a kiosk that also sells lavender-infused hand sanitiser, a product that could only exist in 21st-century Spain.

Climb back to the ramparts for sunset. The castle itself is a disappointment—little more than foundations and one determined tower—but the view compensates. Westwards the plateau drops into the Tajuña valley, a crease of green maize and white irrigation hoses. Beyond, the mountains of the Sierra Norte float like a stage backdrop. Turn 180 degrees and the lavender plots become abstract squares of colour, darker than the sky, a landscape that looks Photoshopped even when you're standing in it.

Evenings centre on Plaza del Coso. Tables spill from four bars onto the cobbles; the church bell strikes quarters nobody counts. Order a caña and a plate of local beans—alubias de La Alcarria—simmered with tomato and, unless you specify otherwise, a nugget of chorizo the size of a squash ball. Vegetarians can ask for “sin embutidos”; most kitchens oblige without the theatrical sigh you get in other regions. Lamb is the other constant: chuletón for the flash, caldereta for the patient. Prices hover around €12–14 for a main, less than you'd pay for a starter in Covent Garden.

Sleeping options divide into two categories. Inside the walls: three boutique houses converted by Madrid architects who discovered Farrow & Ball, plus the Parador de Brihuega occupying an 18th-century cloth mill. Outside: rural casas rurales where Wi-Fi is theoretical and dogs lounge in the shade of hire cars. Book the July weekends by February; otherwise turn up on a Tuesday in March and take your pick. The parador pool is open to non-guests for €15 if you need to wash lavender pollen off your ankles.

Spring and autumn make better hiking seasons than high summer. The river path downstream to Valfermoso de Tajuña is an easy 10 km there-and-back through poplars and abandoned watermills; you can swim in the deeper pozas if you don't mind sharing with frogs. North of town a waymarked loop climbs onto the páramo, that austere Castilian plateau Cela described as “a place where the wind learns to be cruel”. Take water: bars are non-existent and phone signal flickers.

Winter is the trade secret. Daytime temperatures can touch 15 °C, nights drop below zero, and the lavender is just grey stubble. You will have the walls to yourself, the tunnels guide all to yourself, and hotel rates drop by half. The downside: some restaurants close, the shuttle bus is hibernating, and the smell is replaced by woodsmoke. Bring a jacket; at this altitude Atlantic storms arrive without warning and the stone streets channel wind like a wind-tunnel.

Brihuega will never replace the Costas. It has no sea, no Gaudí, no all-night clubs. What it offers instead is concentration: six centuries of walls, a month of purple, a plate of beans cooked by someone whose grandmother already knew the recipe when the Republic fell. Turn up in July for the colour, or in November for the quiet; either way, fill up with petrol before you arrive—the nearest station is 20 km away and the scent of lavender, sadly, has not yet been bottled into fuel.